We are looking forward to a strong partnership with Code for America in 2014.
Rhode Island is poised for positive change, with an active community of citizens ready to embrace new ideas.
The Rhode Island Office of Digital Excellence seeks to deploy a number of the established CfA apps, as well as develop a solution to increase access to technology in education and improve digital literacy.
Thom Guertin, Rhode Island Chief Digital Officer
The 2014 Fellowship in Rhode Island
Despite the relatively modest size of the population (~1 million), Rhode Island has 54 different Local Education Agencies (LEAs), or districts, each with its own unique challenges and opportunities. The State’s Office of Digital Excellence have tasked the Fellows with exploring ways to improve parental engagement, highlight educational resources within the State, reduce brain drain, and bridge the digital divide.
During the year, the Fellows met with school faculty and staff, policy makers, thought leaders, and community members — over 200 people — and ran several focus groups to find common challenges across the state. The projects that emerged focus on improving the first impression and continuing relationship that residents of Rhode Island have with the education system:
- Ticket to RIDE (RIDE = Rhode Island Department of Education) is an application that moves translates the paper-based student registration process online, but also makes it warmer and friendlier for parents and school administrators.
- Golden Ticket allows parents to register their children for lotteries of one or more State sponsored pre-kindergarten program. The application also also performs the lottery selection process, automating a manual and time consuming process.
Check out the Fellows' mid-year update to learn more.
Meet the team:
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Jeff Maher
Hailing from Philadelphia, Jeff is a nerd who likes using his coding skills for good. Before joining Code for America, Jeff helped create a web platform for diabetes data at Johnson & Johnson, a crowd-sourced vacant parcel tracker called Reclaim Philly (via the Code for Philly Brigade), and a bike-parki…
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Anna-Marie Panlilio
Anna-Marie is a full-stack web developer who loves fleshing out vague concepts and turning them into elegant and delightful experiences for people. She is excited about using civic tech to empower citizens to solve their own problems. When she’s not coding, Anna-Marie enjoys capturing dancers in mid-air…
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Andrew Maier
Andrew Maier is a lifelong student of the design community who believes that creation and learning are synonymous. In 2014, Andrew co-founded the publication Civic Quarterly to explore his interests in security, law, cities, and autonomy.
Team Lead:Thom Guertin, Rhode Island Chief Digital Officer
Community Partners: Broadband Rhode Island, Rhode Island Foundation, West Warwick Public Schools, Newport Public Schools, Rhode Island Dept. of Education, Rhode Island Foundation
Follow the fellows' progress on their blog Code Island
Contribute to the Ticket to RIDE on Github.
Contribute to the Golden Ticket RI on Github.
Articles & video
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